3D Printers Demonstrate Rapid Robot Evolution

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NEW YORK — Robots are simply more efficient than humans at
certain tasks. They already excel at building cars, exploring
distant planets and hunting for explosives, but it turns out that
robots might also evolve much faster than their flesh-and-blood
counterparts.

Nick Cheney, a Ph.D. student at Cornell University, presented his
research at an Inside Cornell lecture on May 21. Cheney has
developed a method by which complex computer simulations in a
specific virtual environment —
robots, by his definition — can evolve from selective
pressures, just like animals in nature, but on a timescale of
days instead of countless generations.

To demonstrate the technology, Cheney showed how a series of
diverse but effective robots spontaneously evolved from a single,
inefficient ancestor. He programmed a virtual environment with
only one parameter: robots that moved faster would be able to
produce more offspring. Therefore, the only selective pressure
was speed (in the wild, Cheney compared this behavior to running
from predators).

"Nature is amazing in how it designs things," Cheney said. "We
want robots to interact with their environments as naturally as
animals do." Cheney considers
natural selection — the process by which biological organisms
survive, reproduce and change over time to better suit their
environments — to be a natural algorithm, extremely similar to
what engineers use to optimize robots over time.

Cheney's initial robot, a shambling, cubic progenitor, was not
much to look at. It barely stumbled along a straight line in no
particular hurry. However, small mutations occurred in its
offspring, and the fastest specimens bred with each other. As
subsequent generations evolved, reproduced and died, the robots
took on much more diverse appearances and began to speed across
the screen.

The robots did not resemble traditional animals in any meaningful
sense. Although they had come a long way since their initial boxy
shape, they were still collections of small squares rather than
sleek, curved specimens.

One robot resembled an accordion, constricting and stretching out
as it made its way across the screen. Another, which looked like
a wave about to crash, walked on three small points, almost
falling over itself before finding its balance every few steps.
Others walked on two distant legs, or maintained balance through
rotating, top-mounted appendages. [See also:
10 Incredible 3-D Printed Products ]

"These robots walk in ways we would never have thought of,"
Cheney said. Letting robots evolve without human oversight
eliminates many of the preconceived ideas and biases that humans
bring to the table by default. "We start from randomness, which
is the way life started for us. Most of the random ones are
pretty bad, but every once in a while you get lucky, and one will
be better than the others."

Although these robots are confined to virtual space for the
moment, that won't be the case forever. Thanks to the advent of
3D printing, Cheney envisions a future where his robots could
be powered by air, pressure-sensitive materials, electricity or
even muscle, tissue and bone like real animals. Recent
developments in 3D printing have produced biologically viable
heart cells, liver cells and even skull pieces.

"What we could explore with this is virtually limitless, which is
what excites me most about it," Cheney said. Rapidly evolving
robots with specific parameters could create everything from a
better vacuum cleaner to complex search-and-rescue robots, but
Cheney stresses that this is not the beginning of an
adversarial relationship between humanity and its creation.

"In the future, we'll have more of a collaboration than a
competition," he said. "Working together will be more fruitful
than trying to take over the world."